


Songbird

by amb-roses (overtture)



Category: Professional Wrestling, World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Introspection, Kayfabe Compliant, Mythology References, ask to tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 12:12:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18660211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/overtture/pseuds/amb-roses
Summary: “I'll see you all in hell!” Sami laughs, and Kevin wonders if he’s already there.





	Songbird

**Author's Note:**

> i was half awake and halfway to heat stroke walking home when i pulled out my phone and wrote this, before kevin broke off from the new day when i was sort of. waiting for the other shoe i wasnt sure existed yet. anyway not entirely sure what i was doing with this but take it anyway! as per usual. will probably come back and edit this at some point
> 
> the day i dont tag character study and introspection is the day i die, and its all over for yall when i finally figure out the actual meanings of those tags

Kevin just has a face that makes people want to give him things.

He's not entirely sure what it is, himself. Just that people look at him and feel– not quite _pity,_ but _something_ that makes them want to reach for him and hand him things.

Sometimes it's material. A few times it's been money, spare change or a few bills.

Sometimes trust. Sometimes, it's affection. Sometimes, it's clothed in black, red, white. Sometimes it’s–

It’s too much. Kevin’s always been a bit of a control freak. He feels like Atlas, holding the world upon his shoulders. He tries not to think about it.

People like to give him valuable things, push them into his hands and act like he can just _bear_ them. Some people look at him on the streets and take him for a widow. Or a veteran. Maybe it’s the look in his eye, maybe it’s just his aura. Like he’s damned and they pity him, almost.

He already knows that, though. Kevin Owens is already damned. Has been.

They both are, him and Sami. He’s damned by the long washed blood on his hands, that once dripped from his face, by the endless roar of thousands of people, booing, shrieking, their judging eyes cast down upon him. By every indie wrestler he had to beat down for his shot. For every blow to the back he’s likely going to deal in the future. Kevin was damned and he’d accepted it. He is Kevin Owens and he had the whole world to lose. He has panic and anger and reason after reason and he _knows_ he’s damned to hell and back.

He's accepted this. He'd known from the very beginning that this was his path. This was his road and by god was he gonna walk it with all the pride he could muster.

But Sami’s fate is everything Kevin’s isn’t. Sami has the light, the emotion, the electricity that coursed relentlessly through his wiry frame, the righteousness. Every lack of title, every forced smile, has an old, aged mask, the past of blood and steel in his rear mirror, and very little more in the present and current future. He has song and cheer, and a soul-corroding bitterness that aches and burns and _eats._ If Kevin has everything to lose, Sami has close to nothing left.

Kevin always finds a way to loop back around and out of the Universe's graces. It's familiar, now, but it's strange seeing Sami intentionally looking for their ire. Even through a screen, he feels the beginnings of shivers start at the base of his spine.

It’s so strange, such a long-lost sensation that warms him inside out like a hot drink on a cold day, the way they all cheer for him, for their Champion Kofi and their bard Xavier. Their smiles and enthusiasm, their _joy,_ it’s odd. He’s not some uncaring beast of muscle and teeth, but it’s certainly a change. Children smile at him, wide, crooked smiles and squinted eyes, reach for him instead of shy away when he approaches. They look at him with the same affection that–

It’s ironic. It’s bittersweet. Something in his chest, in his songbird heart, murmurs in anxiety. It whispers in his ears, shuffling in a sort of displeased manner that makes him want to take flight himself, wants to bear talons and wings, take off as soon as someone nears. The weight on his shoulders, now, feels heavy. So heavy. He’s carrying so much.

But Xavier and Kofi turn to him, burning, blinding sunshine.

Kevin clenches his fists, relaxes himself muscle by muscle, piece by piece, and accepts twin smiles hesitantly.

 

* * *

 

“I'll see you all in hell!” Sami laughs, and Kevin wonders if he’s already there.

 

* * *

 

 

Kevin thinks of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice.

One a son of Apollo, of song and music so beautiful that the gods themselves cry at the sound. The other, his partner, his lover, lost to the Underworld in a cruel twist of fate. He thinks of Orpheus, sending himself to Hades to rescue them, singing a song of plea and affection that brings Hades to his knees and passage from his Underworld, of walking out of hell with his back to his lover. The single condition that if he turned to see if the silent shade of his partner was still there behind him before they reached the sunlight, they’d be lost to the Underworld forever.

He thinks of Orpheus, doomed to wander the Earth singing a lonely, empty croon of a song when doubt comes in and steals his dearest partner from him, incomplete and alone, until mortality takes him, too.

He wonders if they ever reunite. He wonders if that’s for him to know.

Kevin sees Sami in his own hell and wonders if the Universe will be enough.

The Universe has already sang it's song to him, sang in elation, in plea, in despair, in determination lined firmly in resolve. They sing to him each time he shows his face, sing and call, call for his heart. They sing against his willing, fight his attempts at wrangling them to his command, they give and give to a void of a man, a void of the greatest wrestler wrestling’s ever seen, who really seems to be unbreakable.

Sami smiles and the Universe insists in broken voiced song and endless cheering at every barbed phrase and sharp backhanded comment.

They will always sing for their love, their lover Sami Zayn. Kevin wonders if he needs to get involved at all with how strongly they call for him, but he knows there’s a very large chance they can’t break through to what’s left of his lost heart. Their calls can only reach so far to a deaf man.

They won’t stop, he knows. They might grow softer, might grow a little bitter themselves, but they won’t be quelled by a few pre-prepared quips. They’ve always been able to see straight through him, straight through both of them. They know Sami better right now than he probably knows himself.

“That’s the new dynamic of this relationship,” Sami insists. The Universe snaps their teeth and give no ground. There’s a flash in the ginger’s eyes, but he’s always been the more stubborn of the two of them. For every inch the Universe gives, Zayn takes a mile. For every sharp word, the Universe is that much more emboldened. It's a stalemate. 

Kevin thinks of the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, and wonders if he’s going to have to start singing, too.


End file.
